Architecture As Crime Control
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Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2002 Architecture as Crime Control Neal K. Katyal Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected] This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1886 https://ssrn.com/abstract=290756 111 Yale L.J. 1039 (2001-2002) This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Other Architecture Commons, and the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons Article Architecture as Crime Control Neal Kumar Katyall CONTENTS I. How ARCHITECTURE CONTROLS CRIME .......................................... 1046 A. Four ArchitecturalMechanisms ........................... 1048 1. Natural Surveillance............................................................ 1050 2. Territoriality........................................................................ 1058 3. Building Comm unity ............................................................ 1062 4. Strengthening Targets.......................................................... 1067 B. Four Constraintson Crime ........................................................ 1071 1. Legal Sanctions.................................................................... 1073 2. Social N orms ........................................................................ 1074 a. Looking Through Broken Windows ............................... 1078 b. Architecture as Social Expression................................. 1083 3. Individual Attitudes .............................................................. 1086 4. PerpetrationCost ................................................................ 1089 II. METHODS FOR THE GOVERNMENT To HARNESS ARCHITECTURE ... 1090 A. Government as Builder............................................................... 1092 1. H ousing ................................................................................ 1092 f Visiting Professor, Yale Law School (2001-2002); Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Thanks to workshops at Georgetown, Yale, Fordham, University of Virginia, and University of Connecticut, and to Bruce Ackerman, Allie Alperovich, Akhil Amar, Jack Balkin, Rachel Barkow, Sara Beale, Cary Bernstein, Eric Braverman, Dan Capra, Richard Chused, Andres Duany, Steven Duke, Bob Ellickson, George Fisher, Owen Fiss, Kim Ford- Mazrui, Ryan Goodman, Karsten Harries, Julie Hilden, John Jeffries, Dan Kahan, Sonia Katyal, Don Langevoort, Roger Lewis, Raj Nayak, Dan Posner, Estelle Rosen, Jeff Rosen, Joanna Rosen, Mike Seidman, Nikhil Shanbhag, Kate Stith, Lynn Stout, and Emily Talen. 1039 Imaged with the Permission of Yale Law Journal 1040 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 111: 1039 2. Public Lands ........................................................................ 1095 3. Procurement........................................................................ 1098 B. Government as Regulator........................................................... 1100 1. Crime Impact Statements ..................................................... 1101 2. Housing Codes ..................................................................... 1102 3. Zoning .................................................................................. 1108 4. Tort Suits .............................................................................. 1112 5. Contractual Regulation ....................................................... 1116 C. Government as Enforcer ............................................................ 1119 1. Regulation of Places of Crime ............................................. 1119 2. CriminalRegulation of Owners of Places ........................... 1122 3. CriminalRegulation of Perpetratorsand Others ............... 1123 a. Crimes Against Neighbors and Networks ..................... 1123 b. Crimes Against Architecture ......................................... 1124 c. Law Enforcement Priorities.......................................... 1125 4. Community Policing ............................................................ 1126 111. SOME RISKS OF ARCHITECTURE ....................................................... 1127 A. Threat to Privacy........................................................................ 1128 B. Social Control ........................................................................ 1130 C. GeographicSubstitution ............................................................. 1133 D. Suboptimal Architecture............................................................. 1135 IV. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 1137 Imaged with the Permission of Yale Law Journal 2002] Architecture as Crime Control 1041 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, one of the most important and underexplored forms of crime control is architecture. Building on work in architectural theory, this Article demonstrates how additional attention to cities, neighborhoods, and individual buildings can reduce criminal activity. In so doing, it considers as "architecture" the full range of activities, from building design to city planning, with which architects are concerned. Understanding the relationship between crime and architecture is especially important as it becomes increasingly clear that conventional law enforcement methods are, at best, partially effective in the fight against crime. Over the past century, advances in architecture have far outpaced those in law; from cranes to bulldozers, plastics to steel, we have developed sophisticated tools and machines to shape the topography of the land. Rather than following longstanding precedent, architecture has often stressed innovation and has been subject to market forces that promote better and cheaper designs. This Article seeks to provide an account of effective crime control that focuses more on architecture and less on conventional methods of law enforcement. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."' Architectural solutions can prove more practical than the utopian ideas often considered when crime control gets interdisciplinary, e.g., better parenting and families and stronger law enforcement (from the political right), or more jobs and education (from the political left). These projects, though worthwhile, are often difficult to accomplish. Architectural improvements that control crime, in contrast, can be adopted and implemented locally with real effect. The idea is not to spend more money-a major impediment to the solutions described above-but to spend it differently. Many civilizations have used design to reinforce particular belief systems.2 Indeed, a standard notion in the emerging field of cyberlaw, associated most directly with Lawrence Lessig, is that the "architecture" of the Internet can prevent crime. A focus on architecture might seem to make unique sense for the Internet: As Lessig observes, the Internet, an artificial 1. [Benjamin Franklin], PA. GAZETTE, Jan. 28-Feb. 4, 1735, at I (discussing fire prevention). Lady Wootton has also argued strongly in favor of prevention of crime rather than punishment down the road. BARBARA WOOTrON, CRIME AND THE CRIMINAL LAW 91-118 (1963); see also MODEL PENAL CODE § 1.02 (1962) (stating that the Code's primary purpose is "to forbid and prevent" criminal acts and that the purpose of sentencing is "to prevent the commission of offenses"). This move, away from treating crime after it happens and toward a view of preventing crime before it happens, is one familiar to doctors, who often weigh the benefits of preventive medicine against the costs of treatment. E.g., David L. Sackett et al., Evidence-Based Medicine: What it is and What it isn't, 312 BRIT. MED. J. 71 (1996). 2. WILLIAM H. ITTELSON ET AL., AN INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 1 (1974); LAWRENCE J. VALE, ARCHITECTURE, POWER, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY 3 (1992) ("Throughout history and across the globe, architecture and urban design have been manipulated in the service of politics."). Imaged with the Permission of Yale Law Journal 1042 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. I111: 1039 environment, is all architecture (or code) and thus infinitely malleable, at least in theory.3 Yet the real world may be more amenable to architectural constraints than the Internet. Architectural changes are far more enduring than code, which can be hacked instantaneously with potentially permanent effects. Once the code is cracked, information can be disseminated across the globe and becomes infinitely copyable. Thus, while the real world does not consist only of architecture, it can be subject to more lasting architectural solutions than cyberspace. It is time to reverse-engineer cyberlaw's insights, and to assess methodically whether changes to the architecture of our streets and buildings can reduce criminal activity. Outside of cyberlaw, contemporary legal scholars and government have not given sufficient attention to architecture, instead thinking primarily about the effect of legal sanctions on crime, and only incidentally about how other social institutions affect crime. In recent years, the discussion has evolved to consider the impact of perpetration cost (the monetary price of engaging in a particular crime) and the role of social norms.4 An examination of architecture can supplement this progress, suggesting, for example, that the high crime rates of inner cities are